I'm a Ball of Sunshine and You Can't Tell Me Otherwise
by Dr. Mini me
Summary: Morwenna Fenwick is just a curse-breaker trying to do her job when her life gets a lot more interesting. "'You need to smile more.' I declared before his lips dropped a touch and I held up my hand, 'not that your smile isn't nice.' I sucked in my lips, feeling terribly inept at not insulting the poor guy." (Post-Azkaban!Sirius Black x OC)
1. Chapter 1

I found myself sweating to death whilst staring at a wall in a darkened cave on Isla Del Sol, Bolivia. Why am I staring at a wall? Well, that was sort of what I was trying to figure out right now. According to Gringotts and some very vocal Peruvian natives, this was meant to be the wall of the same cave that Ayar Cachi and his wife had been trapped in.

Who the feck is that? Well, he's slightly famous for being one of the three brothers to start the Incan Empire.

According to Peruvian legends, Ayar Cachi had been the strongest out of the three brothers. So strong, in fact, that the rocks he threw with his sling shot made mountains crumble. But...as with all legends, the bitter ending is that his brothers became jealous of his power and decided to trap him as well as his wife in a cave.

Maybe it was this cave? Maybe it was one of the hundred other ruins on the island?

Honestly I had to ask how exactly they'd trapped a guy who could break mountains but apparently they'd tricked him and his wife to search for food. Which I guess was in the same cave in which Cachi and his wife were locked inside for all of their lives with a giant stone.

Legend also says that says that the betrayal made Cachi so mad that he screamed strong enough for the whole cave came apart and the skies shivered. Well, my point is that it's not really a normal feat for a Muggle, you know?

Of course, I wasn't sent here on a retrieval mission for bits of a crumbly old cave. Nor was I here to deal with the angry spirit of a man betrayed. I was here because Gringotts thought he'd been buried either in or near his prison with a multitude of gold and magical artefacts, such as the sling shot he used to break whole mountains. Gringotts swore to high hell that the tool had been crafted by Goblins and how else could they tell except to send someone with experience in South America here, right?

I wiped the sweat off my brow, frowning at the fact that their 'someone' was me. Despite the fact that I hadn't ever actually lived in South America, I was somehow the best gal for the job thanks to my lineage.

My mother had been a Peruvian Muggle-born but she was already far more accomplished than me at 22 with her extensive studying of Hippogriff Etiquette. To be honest, I always imagined that she was way more brilliant as a 17 year old graduate from Castelobruxo than the current adult me.

She immigrated to England in an effort to continue her studies on untamed Hippogriffs in the late 1960s. I've been told that was when she'd met my dad and embraced the utter Englishness that was the Fenwick family after I'd been born about four years later.

I crouched down, tracing fissures in the walls with my fingers in hopes that I'd be able to pick up on traces of magic and I did...in a way. It was ever so faint that I wondered if maybe I was picking up on my own source of magic. I was hoping I'd be better at this but my grandma had always said my mother would have been proud of me even if I'd decided to take up professional yodelling.

"Sin giro." I paused my tracing at the sensation of something hard jab itself in my back and immediately thought of a gun. My breathing stopped when I realised I was listening to a man tell me to not turn around in broken Spanish. I think professional yodelling would have been a better choice than being a curse-breaker.

"¿Qué quiere decir con eso?" I mumbled back to the man, asking what he'd meant in my best Spanish.

I was hoping this wasn't a local that decided to try his luck with robbing me, because my pronunciation hasn't always been terrific. It'd been better when I was younger, but all of zero people spoke Spanish at Hogwarts leaving me with only being able to practice on holiday.

"What?" He responded after a second, sounding confused as if I'd just uttered a riddle in ancient Greek.

So, he isn't local? He's English, wait. My brow furrowed out of confusion while I attempted to understand the gravity of my situation. Why is he here? Is he a tourist?

I turned my head to the side to see the man, startling him "hey! I said _Sin giro_." My head stilled as the pointed object he was holding me hostage with pointed into my back a little harder. Alrighty then, I guess this is how it is now?

It appeared that here, in this idiotic cave, I somehow found myself trapped between a literal rock and a hard stabby thing in my back. Briefly, I considered how angry Dora was going to be if I died after bragging about my innate ability to come out smelling like daises in sticky situations. My grandma would probably cry and that'd be sad, I figured, but Dora might actually try to bring me back from the dead just to yell at me.

Nymphadora Tonks had quite the temper for a new officially trained Auror, but she'd always had a short fuse. I think her lack of self-control when she was angry was exactly why we'd become friends in the first place considering she didn't deal well with bully's and I'd had a few in my younger years.

She'd been so proud to tell me that she'd finished her training. It was something that I wondered if I'd ever be able to congratulate her on as I gripped my wand tighter. I decided that I had two options now but I had to pick one soon because my legs were seriously starting to hurt with all this prolonged crouching.

I could whirl around and fire off my best hexes which might work. Might also cause the cave to come crashing down on me and I sort of still had to find Cachi's grave. Or I could just...go along with it? Play the part of confused local and see how long it takes him to figure it out?

"What want?" This was my best attempt at hiding my farmeresque Devon accent and pretending that I didn't speak a word of English while I slipped my wand up my sleeve.

"You speak English?" The man responded, sounding almost happy with it.

Yes, playing the fool was a good plan for now. It wasn't as though he was going to kill me, if he were then why hadn't he done it already? If he were trying to rob me, I didn't have anything very valuable outside of my mum's necklace which I guess might get you a bit of change. It was only nickel that'd been gold-plated at one time with a shiny blue pebble my dad had found by the beach when my parents first met, it's worth was only sentimental.

"Sí." I nodded at the wall after a moment, wondering what he'd do next with that information. _  
_

I tensed at the sound of a long sigh, his breath smelled as though he'd been rolling around in a landfill. "Oh thank Godric, I haven't tried Spanish since I was 15." He laughed a little at that, the sound was deep and low when it'd echoed in the cave. Godric? Cripes, am I being accosted by a bloody Wizard?

Dora was going to be absolutely furious for my stupidity and recklessness, if this English Wizard killed me. Especially considering that my last letter to her was a very short 'don't worry, the most dangerous thing here are a few pesky creatures and the Peruvian Vipertooth.' I mean, I really thought that Dragons were the most dangerous thing here!

"Alright, get up and uh..." He prompted but sounded like he was still considering what he wanted me to do after I got up.

Mutely, I obeyed by slowly placing my hands in the sandy dirt as I shifted my numb and tingly legs around to stand up. I nearly fell over but gripped the wall for help while my ankles and feet enjoyed their new found supply of bloody rushing into them.

"Now, take me to your uh-tu casa."

I was still staring at the wall, taking in shallow breaths as he declared his next order. I assumed the stabby thing between my shoulder blades was just his wand poking me in the back, as opposed to a gun.

Instead of smacking him and running, I found myself wondering why he'd want come home with me. Not that I had a home here, really. I was actually just checked into an inn of sorts on the Island, but it did have a bathroom where I might be able to convince him to brush his teeth.

"Can..." I was about to just ask 'can I go now or are you going to hex me for moving' but wondered if that was a bit too articulate for the part I was trying to play.

"Can go? now?" I pursed my lips, hoping that was good enough. I think my mum would be rollin' over in her grave if she knew I was actually playing the part of an ignorant latina right now.

"Sí, sí. Go off to your house now." He seemed to believe it and I figured that was good enough for me to just turn and start walking.

I'd made it out of the cave with my anonymous English aggressor and gasped at the sight of a Hippogriff who looked to be waiting on someone to come back. Holy balls, he has a Hippogriff...good thing I didn't try to hex him, that thing might eat me if I killed his master.

"What? Why are you stoppin-" The Wizard almost shouted me when I stopped to stare and try to contain my surprise, "oh, right. Shit. You weren't supposed to see him, sorry." He apologised, and the point in my back disappeared momentarily up until the Hippogriff seemingly vanished with him uttering a word.

I think this might be the weirdest kidnapping/mugging I've ever heard of in my life.

* * *

I found myself facing yet another wall, but at least this one was in my room. We'd gotten quite the number of confused and weird looks by the time I found my way back to the Inn. The woman downstairs and her husband asked me who he was and where he'd come from as soon as we'd gotten through their front door.

I'd claimed he was my drunk uncle, hoping that him and I looked similar enough for them to believe me. I was worried that if I tried to ask for help or informed them that I'd been kidnapped, he'd snap or hurt them considering that I knew next to nothing about his temperament. I mean they were nice enough to let me stay here and the woman, Maria, made an awesome omelette for breakfast. It worked well-ish, the owners gave him disapproving looks while we stomped up the stairs and he made sure I couldn't run off while he used the bathroom.

His whole 'have to make sure you can't tattle' plan was to use magic and tie my hands to the bed frame. Honestly, if I weren't trying to be a local that was ignorant to magic, I'd have told him that I'd _love_ it if he wanted to freshen up-like I'd even turn on the shower for him and hand him my tooth brush.

I hadn't actually seen him yet, so he may be bald or have a grotesque second head growing out of his shoulder, but I could _smell_ him very well. As soon as we got out of the cave and I decided I'd go along with this plan, every time the wind blew I did everything I could to not gag. Let me tell you, being in a room with him ought to be used as an interrogation tactic-that man's stench could make a rubbish bin surrender all of it's secrets.

I heard the shower stop and sat up a little more, trying to twist my head around to see who I'd loaned my bathroom to for the last 30 minutes out of morbid curiosity. I stared for maybe a minute and looked forwards again once I figured out he wasn't coming out immediately.

I do realise that he'd sort of commandeered it but I still had my wand and he had no clue about me being a witch; that'd been a unknowingly genius move right there. I wasn't about to hesitate in using my wand if he did become a genuine threat but so far he'd just been a smelly homeless man.

Honestly, even as a child, I went along with plans that weren't terrific while knowing they were terrible; I gave my grandma quite the run for her money in raising me. When Dora and I tried to break into Hogwarts's greenhouse, I _knew_ it was a bad plan while we did it but it was fun to sneak around. The detention with McGonagall after we got caught wasn't as much fun, nor was the howler I received the next morning, but hey. You live and you sometimes learn.

I heard the door creakily open behind me and twisted around again to see a pale black haired man with numerous tattoos all over his chest. Curiously, my eyes traced down from what I could see on his shoulders and chest while he rubbed his face into a towel. They looked to be runes of some kind but I couldn't tell which ones exactly without my glasses from across the room.

He'd apparently also gave his face a trimming while in the shower, the towel he'd pulled away from his face was covered in matted curly black hairs. Lovely. I mean at least he didn't smell like a dump any more, right? Oh shit, he's looking at you-my eyes widened slightly before I swallowed as he continued to watch me stare at him. LOOK AWAY, WINNIE. LOOK. AWAY.

I faced the wall again, feeling a bit like I hadn't been kidnapped but treated to a private showing of thieves-gone-wild. A second passed before I heard his feet hitting the floorboards I was sitting on, suddenly he was crouching in between the bed and the wall, peering at me.

"Thanks, got any clothes?" I glanced at him for a short second before nodding. It'd been only long enough to realise that he was clad in a bloody towel and I had my hands tied up. A vaguely morose part of my brain told me that if the towel had been any shorter I felt like I'd finally discover the connection between this man and the size of his feet. Eugh, his nails need to be clipped; the sight of his toenails right now ought to be illegal.

"Where are they then?" Forget the private showing, this had just turned into a backwards BDSM scenario consider that all we lacked were the sadism and masochism bits. I swallowed before letting out a slow breath to calm my idiotically perverted brain, "closet."

From the corner of my eye I saw him stand and disappear out of my view again, imaging he'd gone off to find the closet now. I heard a creak signalling he'd opened the doors and was now going through my clothes.

Hah! Dora always said that it was stupid for me to buy men's boxers and joggers instead of just biting my tongue and going into a lingerie shop. I'd shown her, hadn't I? Okay not really, my second-hand embarrassment for going into lingerie stores was still as idiotic as ever, but at least he'd fail to find anything particularly frilly in there.

Oh bloody hell, what if he was a pervert? You hadn't even considered that before letting him into your room, Winnie! In my defence, his smell had probably killed off too many brain cells at once for me think about things rationally. You try figuring out a random homeless blokes' intentions when he reeks like a bloody portable toilet with a mangy do-

"Winnie?" I froze at the sound of my nickname being uttered incredulously and pursed my lips, not responding. Maybe he was a Legilimens? Quick, start shouting God Save the Queen in your head before he comes over here and figures out all sorts of embarrassing secrets.

Suddenly he appeared next to me again, though at least he was wearing pants now. "Are you a witch?" My eyes followed him down as he crouched, pondering the ramifications of this predicament and my life expectancy. You know, I think I've seen him somewher-

"Come on!" I jumped when he instantaneously began shouting at me, cutting him a dirty look for trying to make my eardrum's burst.

"How else could you have an edition of the Daily Prophet?" My eyes drifted towards the newest edition of the Daily Prophet, the stupidest newspaper that Dora kept sending to 'keep me updated on important events'. It took my eyes a moment to focus in on the purple envelope that'd been ripped open amongst the pages of the newspaper.

"Did you open my mail?" I gawked, before annoyance set in and I began to glower while attempting to shimmy my wand out of my sleeve. "I'm pretty sure it's illegal to open other people's mail, y'know."

"Ah, she speaks." He glared at me, twisting the paper up in his hands while I glared back at him. "What? Were you starting to enjoy the two word sentences?" I scoffed, trying to focus on glaring at him while also getting my wand out. It was just past my sleeve, one more shake and it'd be in my hand.

"So, are you going to turn me in?" I shifted away from him at an awkward angle when he raised his hand and shouted, "have you already called them!?" He flung the mangled Newspaper at the floor near me, "watch it!" I glared at him as he stood up, seemingly deaf to my exclamation, to run off towards one of the two windows in my room.

"Is that it?"

"What are you talking about?" I raised a brow, feeling my wand slide into my palm and attempting to wave it in a way that would break my bonds but also avoid blasting my hand off. If he meant the police, I seriously doubted both the Peruvian and the Bolivian police's ability to come all the way out here for one paranoid homeless bloke-even if he were a wizard.

He ducked underneath the one window, crawling at an alarming speed to peek out the other. "They're coming for me, aren't they?" I could barely hear him over the creaking of the floorboards as he crawled, mumbling to himself.

Alright, so _he's_ loony which was fair. I'd be loony too if my hair had matted up like his had on the back of his head. It looked as though he had the beginnings of a bird nest flopping against the back of his neck as he moved. Actually I think I'd just shave it all off, it'd be a lost cause. My hair was far too curly and frizzy to ever be untangled if I let it get to that point.

My bounds gave away, releasing me from my odd little kidnapping as I watched this random, crazy, shirtless man crawl around my room. I stared at him for a minute, not moving at all in an effort not to drag his attention back towards me. I supposed that he'd come from somewhere ghastly for his eyes to be that large as he stared at everything in the room as though it'd all jump up and attack him.

I could catch only bits and pieces of his continuous mumbling about his freedom and someone named James. Perhaps he'd realise after a few minutes that no one was coming to get him and then maybe he'd stop crawling around like the villain in a bloody horror flick. Maybe I could even talk to him then?

I was rather curious to know who he was, its not often that you find a man with his wand in your bac-okay, not _that_ wand. Blimey, Winnie. You were all worried about him being a pervert and look at you!

He froze with his eyes still as large as dinner plates and for a moment, I worried that he might have had a heart attack on my floor. Having to call your employer about a bloke that just up and died while you were doing a job for them didn't set a great precedent. I shifted my leg slowly and nearly had a heart attack myself when his entire body shifted to watch me.

Alright! So, the man was obviously having a friggin' episode here and I was apparently the enemy. I went still and simply waited for him to realise where he was again, I didn't know exactly how long it'd take him to remember he wasn't wherever he'd been but I was willing to wait.

When I was a kid I'd been taken in momentarily by Mad-Eye Moody. It'd only been for about a month which was probably for the best considering Mad-Eye's parenting skills. It was after my parents had all but disappeared and my grandma was contacted when...well. She was owled when he couldn't find all the bits and bob's that used to be my dad.

Of course, this was after he'd lost a leg but hadn't lost his eye just yet, so he was known as Moody to me. Now, _that_ was a paranoid man. He'd scan me up and down with his little Sneakoscope thingamajig any time I came back inside his house from playing outside.

'CONSTANT VIGILANCE, MORWENNA!' He'd shout that nearly any time I asked why he'd bother with it. I can still remember waking up in the middle of the night from a nightmare and having him suddenly blasting the feckin' door open to attack whoever was in the room with m-

"Winnie?" I blinked at the man who'd been having a bit of a breakdown to find that he'd finished his rolling and was now staring down at me with narrowed but tired looking eyes. How old was this guy? He looked to be about 50 to nearly half-dead by the sheer number of wrinkles on his face.

"That's _Morwenna_ to you, opener-of-other-peopke's mail." I pursed my lips, waiting for him to move or breath or do literally anything but stare at me. "Yes?" I raised a brow, waiting for the next thing he'd shout.

"Why didn't you call the Ministry?" He frowned after he'd spoken, as though he was expecting some horribly painful reason.

I peered at him for a moment, noticing that he was a little closer than I'd expected him to feel comfortable with after that whole panic-attack. Though the term 'ministry' made my mind whirl, sending down a hint of worry to twist in my gut. We were both from the UK and I knew of only one _Ministry_ in Britain, which made me wonder why he'd think that I would call them.

I shrugged, "why would I?" His frown deepened for a moment but then eased off his face as his head tilted, speculatively watching my features. "I did just...kidnap you."

"Kidnapping is a bit of an exaggeration. " I scoffed, crossing my arms over my chest and freezing when I remembered that he didn't know I'd freed myself. Damn it, I just gave away the element of surprise.

"Huh." His eyes dropped down to my arms, crossed snugly against my chest before his eyes trailed up my frame again. "What do you call threatening someone into taking them home with you and tying them up then?" He raised a brow, shifting his lower body around to crouch with his elbows perched on his knees. He's a limber ol' guy, isn't he?

"Do you do yoga?" I pursed my lips as he drew back from me a touch. "No?" He raised a brow, confused for a moment as I nodded. Fair enough, I had to ask though. _I_ couldn't sit like he was for very long, I'd just tumble over or lose the feeling in my ankles.

His confusion quickly turned into what I had to assume was him being amused, "do I look like it?" The right corner of his mouth pulled back to expose yellowed teeth that I could only stare at with disbelief.

I imagined this is was what dogs might look like if they knew how to smile which was vaguely entertaining, making my lips quirk. But the awkward way he'd done so made me think that maybe he'd somehow forgotten how to smile. That thought made me sad, so I looked away from his mouth to focus on only his nose.

I shrugged a tad, not entirely sure if being able to keep your balance on your haunches meant you did yoga. Ah, wait-that wasn't the right question to ask him, was it? Oh well. Now I know, I guess? I cleared my throat, glancing at the wall whose cracks had been filled in with Spackle. Then to the floor which wasn't very interesting so I turned my gaze back to him as none of those things gave me something to fill the silence with.

"So what'd you do?" I raised a brow, not really considering the words I'd just spouted out. I just needed _something_ to focus on outside of the fact that the homeless man was basically studying me whilst wearing my joggers. Though I didn't mind him being shirtless, I decided that he could do with a bit to eat from the looks of him.

"I'm serious black." He dead-panned, apparently waiting on some sort of response from me at his declaration of how little he was joking around. I began nodding slowly, "me too." I furrowed my brows when he didn't continue his odd little sentence and waved my hand at him, "but...what did you _do_?"

"Winnie-" He sputtered, gawking at me as though I'd grown a second head. "I-I'm _serious_ _b_ _lack_." I rolled my eyes, nodding at him before standing up slowly.

Well! If he didn't want to share all of his dark past, that was fine. I was curious but it wasn't as though I could force him to tell me what he'd done to have the Ministry of Magic looking for him.

Eventually he'd stop mumbling about how serious he was-though as I went to take a step around him, I considered that maybe he couldn't actually recall. Or perhaps he'd been jinxed so that whenever he tried to say it 'black' came out of his mouth.

A hand grabbed my ankle, jerking it to a stop and causing me to almost fall on him in the process, "what are you doing?" He demanded hotly, gripping my ankle even when I tried to pull it away from him.

My lips fell into a straight line out of exasperation for his insistence to control where I went but when I turned my head towards him, I didn't shout like I'd wanted too. I couldn't. His expression read out as anxious and apologetic all at once, so instead I just sighed.

"I was going to get some food." I waited for that to process, watching the array of thoughts filter over his face before he seemed to like the idea but was still worried about something.

"I'm coming too." He let go of my ankle, nodding to himself as he rose to his full height. It took me a moment to respond, surprised at just how much he dwarfed me in height. Bloody hell, the man was like a windmill with arms that long.

He didn't appear to notice my gawking, moving to step around me as I reached out to grab his arm but stopped myself. "Wait!" I let my arm hang between us after I shouted at him. I didn't know how he felt about contact and I didn't fancy hanging around here out of guilt for setting him off on another panic attack.

"You can't go around lookin' like that. You'd scare everyone." I surmised, retracting my limb back to my side after he'd stopped to stare at me while I'd spoken.

"I'm not going out like this." He gave me the same awkward tightening of his lips as they retracted to show me his teeth. His response registered somewhere in the back of my mind with confusion but I didn't focus on it. I was more concerned with the fact that he'd done it yet again, he honestly _had_ forgotten how to smile, and I frowned.

"You need to smile more." I declared before his lips dropped a touch and I held up my hand, "not that your smile isn't nice." I sucked in my lips feeling terribly inept at _not_ insulting the poor guy.

He didn't respond, so I decided that I'd done enough damage by now and walked past him to go towards the door. Eventually I'd learn the finer points of social etiquette but as long as I didn't make him sad again for the next four hours, I figured that I'd be doing rather well.


	2. Chapter 2

_ListenCloselyWhileILie_ : Thank you for reading!

 _Guest 4_ : You silly thing, you. I'm actually quite hard to offend/bother, mainly because I tend to act quite coldly in my day-to-day life. So, with that in mind, please don't worry about bugging me. I love reading your reviews.  
So, how it works for me is that I get the reviews sent to my email's inbox almost as soon as you hit submit. I'll read each new one as it comes in and file it away into the cobwebby mess of an office that is my mind. If I'm updating whilst I get it, I'll add it into the chapter! Everyone gets a chance to review and have me read them up until I make the chapter public and so on. After that point, I may respond or I may not. Depends how I feel in the moment.  
As for That Crazy Animal Lady _,_ I actually love the amount of questions you come up with. It tells me that you're excited, and this is the most I actually get to communicate one-on-one with my readers! I'll get PM's for things like Role Playing or the occasional creepy message about what I look like/where I live, etc. Due to this, I respond strictly to reader's questions/reviews in my PM's. And, of course I'll update the story for your birthday-consider it my present to you for however many years you've been around! :)  
However, I am sorry that you've had an awful week. I've had one myself for the past several weeks which is why I pulled back chapters to once a month. I do my best with that story and while I technically have enough of it stored up to continuously post for a couple weeks-it just wouldn't _feel_ right to me. It's a happy story, and if I'm not in the right mindset to write it I usually wind up souring the mood (if that makes sense.) I'm glad that you enjoyed my wink-wink-nudge-nudge, I actually giggled aloud whilst writing it. Also, here's the next chapter of SiriusxOC. (Obviously.)

Enjoy! :)

* * *

Quite honestly, I'd been rather shocked to see a big furry dog trot past me when I'd held the door to my room open. After he'd stopped in the hallway, seemingly waiting for me to let go of the door, I found myself to be more amused than surprised. Suddenly a lot of his mannerisms made sense, and I wondered that _if_ I got him a bone...would he be interested in chewing on it-or would that offend him? What was the etiquette for that?

I hadn't considered the possibility of him being an animagi, last I'd heard there were less than six of them in this century. The concept was fascinating-sure. But it felt impractical for me to ever try it, considering the amount of time and effort it took.

I'd ended up pestering the man with a flurry of questions right after he'd morphed back into a human in front of my very eyes. Mentally considering the actual process of becoming an animagi took up a total of five minutes of my time whilst lounging around in my room.

We'd lapsed into silence after dinner and I found myself utterly bored while I crumbled the sheet of aluminium that once held my tacos into a ball and tossed it up into the air before catching it.

"Hum," I sighed quietly, watching the ball as it flew up into the air before I caught it and repeated the activity once more. This is utterly _boring._

Sitting up on the rickety bed, I eyed the bin across the room by the small desk that I'd covered in maps and texts just yesterday. The bin was only three, at most five, meters away from where I was. But, then again, I'd never had terrific aim.

Of course, not being _talented_ in something hadn't stopped me from doing it before.

So...I flung the ball as hard as I could.

Apparently I'd underestimated my strength because the ball flew across the room, shocker. It caused the papers I'd left out on my desk to flutter, and fall to the ground. They'd crinkled louder than I'd expected after it'd grazed them to promptly smack against the back wall with a loud thud.

A low grunt from the bloke-the one that I'd somehow taken back home with me-signalled his displeasure at my ministrations. I sighed again out of the choking doom that was boredom, but laid down anyway. I wasn't interested in seeing what he'd do if I annoyed him into reacting.

He hadn't spoken since answering all of my questions about his Animagus training, so I assumed he didn't feel like chatting right now...which made me feel even _more_ bored. I'd never been fond of being alone on these trips. In fact, it'd been incredibly lonely at first. But, what was the use in having company that didn't talk to you?

I rolled over in my bed to stare out the window at the dark starry sky outside. You could see the stars so much better from less urban places like this than England. Even in the countryside there'd be only a couple of stars which-to be fair-was a good bit more than a grand total of zero in the city.

It was like the stars had done their best to stuff as many of themselves as they could into the night sky here. I wondered if far above me there was a few that found themselves teetering on the edge of my vision, trying to not fall into the dark and disappear forever.

"Do you think stars see us looking up at them?" I posed my question aloud as I marvelled at the hazy lights so far away, not really caring if my companion was listening from the floor next to me.

"I don't think they care." I glanced away from the window, shifting my body so I could peek over at him from the edge of my bed. One bony arm was covering his eyes while his hand laid flat against his stomach.

I picked my head up slightly so I wouldn't speak into the mattress, "why wouldn't they?" He'd taken one of the pillows from my bed and a sheet which made me feel a little better about him sleeping on the hard floor while I enjoyed the bed's soft mattress.

"They're _aeons_ away from us. We're probably just insignificant bugs to them with all our trivial problems," he shrugged as though being far away meant that we weren't important somehow.

I furrowed my brow as his reasoning before considering it for a moment, "so what?"

Just because something was far away didn't mean they couldn't care, right? If that were true then I think I would've killed myself due to a lack of meaningful friendships being so far away from everyone I knew and loved. Laughter and adventure made life worth living. If I didn't have those, what was the point in doing anything?

His arm moved away from his eyes as he huffed, " _so._ Why should something so big and powerful care about ants looking at them?" He waved his hand at the window above him, sounding like I should've known this already.

"Maybe they get lonely," I shrugged coolly, amused as I watched his exasperation grow with his mouth falling open before he sat upright. "How could the stars get lonely? There's billions of em!"

"Just because there's a lot of them doesn't mean they all get along." I tried my best to not react, only smiling a little while watching him smack his palm against his face, "bloody _hell_." I couldn't keep my mouth shut once he let out another sound of annoyance at my response, giggling softly.

At first, I hadn't been very eager for him to stick around after he'd eaten. Though I'm not sure if that'd been apart of his original plan-I mean, for all he knew, I was a sociopathic murderer. To be fair, for all I knew, _he_ was a sociopathic murderer. I didn't get that sort of feeling from him, but I don't think I've ran into enough of those in my lifetime to have an expert opinion on what such people 'felt' like. Maybe they wouldn't give me a feeling at all?

The hours had passed quickly while I entertained myself with food and showering. He'd even humoured me by answering all of my Animagi-centric questions. I'd figured that it'd be fine for him to take off at that point. I'd been feeling like I'd done my civic duty since I'd so graciously allowed him to shower, brush his teeth, and eat.

But after watching him try to debate the stars and their emotions with me, I'd decided that he was a source of considerable entertainment.

"Are all _youths_ these days as annoying as you are?" He dramatically flung himself back to the floor, groaning at the pain of the wood hitting his back a little too hard. I found that I was _very_ glad that I hadn't kicked him to the kerb just yet.

"Probably not, old man. I do try my best though." I shook my head, feeling my smile expand into a grin when he rolled his eyes at me. "Course you do," he huffed, still rubbing the spot behind his shoulder that I assumed had hit the floor hardest.

His expression was pinched looking to me, as though he might have actually hurt himself during his theatrics. Maybe he'd need an extra blanket to lay down on tonight? My grandma's arthritis made her joints hurt even more when she bumped into things and there was no need to cause this bloke unnecessary pain when I could simply fix it.

"How old are you, by the way?" I tilted my head, peering down at him while I considered which type of blanket would be better for him to lay down on.

He raised a brow, "how old do you _think_ I am?"

I pursed my lips at his challenging tone, and stopped myself from immediately spouting out how old I actually thought he was. Uh oh, Winnie. You've gotten yourself stuck now, haven't you? Say a smaller number than 50, he's already homeless-he doesn't need to feel like you're outright insulting him.

"45?" I raised a brow, hopeful that I hadn't fudged this up somehow. " _45?_ " He gawked, his mouth falling open.

I watched as his eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed, "which you look great for! I mean I've always fancied an older guy-much more mature and experienced." I nodded quickly, taking in a small breath after my rambling.

Those weren't necessarily lies, I did tend to go for older men but so far the oldest I'd gone for was only 24-just two years older than myself. I'll admit that two years wasn't very much but hey. I tried, okay?

"And how old are you? _12_?" He narrowed his eyes, glaring at me as I came to the conclusion that I'd totally overestimated his age.

I raised a brow at his tone, "you _really_ think a 12 year old would be in South America by herself?" I purposely paused, waiting to see what he'd do next with morbid fascination.

His mouth kept opening before he'd ease up his glare, only to snap it shut again, and narrow his eyes even more. He was officially forcing me to try and hide the smile that his flustered expression was bringing out of me. It was probably a good thing he didn't have a clue about what his flustered expression was doing to me.

Honestly, I didn't find that looking like a pre-teen to be much of an insult, though I did feel a little bad that I'd insulted him this much. It was the honest truth-I have the face of a teenaged girl and when I _was_ a teenaged girl, I looked like I'd ought to be in primary school.

"Well, you look like a child!" He nodded, as though that'd shown me while I shrugged, "yeah. I do. When I was 12, I looked like I was seven. But now I'm 22, and its not _better..._ but I've got used to it." I was attempting to help melt away the gibe that he'd interpreted from my guessimation but it looked as though I was just bothering him even more.

"Mhm," he mumbled, glancing at me for a moment before throwing his arm back over his eyes while hugging his other arm around the skin of his exposed stomach.

I couldn't help but wonder if he'd get cold tonight. The temperatures here dropped quite a bit after the sun had set, and it wasn't as though he had a lot of extra padding on his body right now. Honestly, he looked to be just skin and bones-but I couldn't just _say_ it, y'know?

He'd probably think I was genuinely trying my best to mock him when I swear I was just having a bit of fun. I liked talking to people; everyone had an interesting or funny story they wanted to tell and all it took me to learn about it was to just ask.

"Night, Winnie." I pursed my lips at his distant tone, and wondered if he'd say something else.

I laid there for another minute of silence before deciding that he truly was trying to go to sleep now. While scooting away from the edge of the bed, I wondered if I'd somehow thrown a spanner into the works of what'd been looking like learning about a new fun friend.

If I had, I wasn't sure what else I could do right now to remedy the situation so I simply focused on pulling the sheets out from under my arse and sliding underneath them. It'd always taken me longer than most to fall asleep, especially when I was completely alone with nothing but the sound of me breathing in my ears.

Unfortunately, tonight wasn't an exception despite my company. I'd had to fight off the urge to make sure the bloke was still breathing a few times. He was just so bloody _quiet_! Thought he might have died after exhausting himself, to be honest. It wasn't as though he appeared to be in peak physical condition...was he? Perhaps he's got a disorder of some kind?

I imagined that nearly anyone might wind up with a physical issue after whatever he'd gone through. His wrists were scarred to say the least, and his ribs seemed to almost break the papery skin that covered his torso with every breath. Malnutrition was no joke-even your bloody bones start to weaken if it goes on too long.

It was difficult to tell time when you were attempting to fall asleep whilst fending off the urge to attach a heart rate monitor to your companion. Either it felt like it'd sped up or it was ticking by at a quarter of it's regular pace. All I knew is that I'd fallen asleep after the guy on my floor had begun to snore softly.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Guest 4:**_ That was far too many parenthesis, LOL. But, it did give me a good chuckle and no worries! Everyone gets weird with their friends. I'm glad you liked the last chapter as I got a little _too_ into this story. I've already written up the next chapter already?  
I did notice that I'd failed to qualify this as a Sirius/OC fic, but I swear I did that when I posted it? Either way, That Crazy Animal Lady is already written, so now I'm sort of floundering about for what to do with the amount of free time I have this evening.

* * *

"James!" I jerked awake at the sound of a desperate and scared shout near me. My hand was reaching for the wand under my pillow when I somehow found myself deciding that I was ready to go out in a fight, if it came down to that.

It was only when I heard the quiet moan that followed the out-cry that I actually paused. My fingers were just under the pillow while my mind forced me to run back over the memories I had before going to bed. Why was there someone shouting? Who was James? Why was James here? I don't think I've ever met a James.

I was slowly remembering where I was, and who else was here with me. South America. Homeless bloke that _may_ have been jinxed to say Black. This was easier said than done when I'd just jumped into attack mode from a dead sleep-Moody'd be proud. I'd probably tell him about this at the Christmas party next month-shite. I still needed to tell Dora that I was comin-

Another low moan interrupted my train of thought and I blinked. Right. I still needed to actually make sure that no one was dying and that this James fellow wasn't currently in the room with me...that'd be just my luck though. Take in a homeless Animagus, and he brings in a second guy because hey, free room, right?

Slowly, I wound up pulling my wand out but only gently flicked it. Just wanted some light in the soft darkness of the room so I could make sure everything was safe and sound around me. I didn't want to blind myself nor did I want to scare my companion, who was apparently terrified for someone named James.

It'd taken my eyes a second to adjust to the dim light coming from the tip of my wand. But, after a few seconds of my dazed blinking, I found that the pain in my retinas had gone away.

"No," a soft mumble came from somewhere to my right. It prompted me to lean over the edge of the bed, peering down to spot my companion on the floor.

He was still asleep, but his face had twisted into pain while his shoulders shook lightly. Damn it. I _knew_ I should have gotten another blanket for him, now I just felt bad. I guessed he was having a nightmare of some sort, his legs twitching roughly as though he were trying to run while still laying down.

I leaned back up and flicked my wand once more, increasing the light enough that I could actually see around me. Nothing was out of place and I didn't spot a third person in the room with us. So, then James was a person he'd known? He was obviously dreaming about him.

I ran through a list of things that made me feel better after a nightmare and settled on simply giving him a thicker blanket. Part of me wanted to quietly remind him that he wasn't wherever he'd been dreaming about, but that felt a bit _too_ intrusive. I mean, even I had boundaries-however wide they were.

It took me two soft tugs to pull the wool blanket's corners out from where they'd been tucked under my mattress. Another second ticked by as I tried to smoothly stand up, attempting to not fall off the mattress while putting my wand between my teeth and the blanket in two hands.

"Muh," he rolled to his side, and I froze to consider what 'muh' might mean whilst teetering above him.

I eased out of the pose, unsure as to how to throw the fuzzy thing onto his frame without waking him...magic. Duh. Of course. You know, for someone who felt rather clever at times, I was really sort of stupid.

I sat back onto my calves with my feet pressed onto the bed as I focused on carefully taking my wand out of my mouth. With a soft wave of it, I motioned for the cover to gently float up. Pursing my lips out of concentration, I silently prayed that this wouldn't terrify him before I flicked my wand towards his frame.

The blanket fell from the air above the moaning man and I didn't dare breath out of fear I'd somehow wake him up with my breathing. It landed on the ground with a soft flush of air before I tried to listening for a change in his breathing.

It felt as though hours passed whilst I remained entirely still. My feet and ankles were showing their protest by sending zings of pain up my legs as+ my heart beat thundered in my ears. Eventually he quieted, his breathing slowed and I wasn't sure if I could actually get _out_ of this kneeling position now.

Flopping over onto my side, I used my arms to pull my pillow back under head after sliding my wand underneath it once again. Getting the sheet on top of my numb legs was more way more difficult that it was worth, so I simply left half of my left leg covered and closed my eyes. I didn't get cold easily, probably all the extra fluff I carried around my hips and arse.

* * *

When I'd woken up again, the sun had risen and the watch on my wrist said it was 9 AM. It'd taken me maybe 30 minutes of showering to realise that I'd woken up to an empty room, which included me sticking my soaking wet head out of the bathroom to peek.

I was indeed alone, which was rather sad in some way. Probably because it meant that I'd have to just focus on my job and get it done. Adulting sucked sometimes, you never get to have any fun and your sleepover pals always leave the next morning.

Maybe that's why people got married? I mean if your sleepover guy left, he'd just be leaving his own house right? But...is he really a sleepover pal if you've married him? I shook off the thoughts, deciding I needed to get out of the shower before I went pruney and rinsed my hair.

One plus-side of your pal leaving the next morning was that it meant you could just walk out of the bathroom without the possibility of flashing them. Didn't even have to take the towel with you-unless you wanted to, of course. But, I didn't so I just strolled over to the closet and grabbed out some clothes that I hopefully wouldn't sweat to death in.

Before I left for the day, I'd found myself pausing by the door and decided to jot down a message-just in case. It'd been sort-of silly to do, but I did it anyway. It was just to inform him that if he did somehow return before I did, he could find me where we'd first met.

I was almost out the door when a nagging memory of seeing his ribs poking through his skin forced my feet to stop. I went back to the note, adding that there was some left over omelet if he wanted it.

On the way to my site, I decided that I could do with getting a partner. I needed some sort of company. Staring at cave walls and digging carefully into the ground got a little lonely after a few hours, y'know?

The cave itself was eerily quiet around noon, I didn't even see a Hippogriff outside of it so there went my hope for someone I could rambling at. But at-least it provided some shelter from the sweltering sun in all it's noon-time glory.

All that I could hear was my own breathing mixed into the sound of my wand winding down for a bit. I'd given it a break from digging into the earth for the last hour. I supposed it was due a break by now, and obviously it thought so too. I sighed as I eyed the pile of dirt next to me that had slowly grown larger and uncrossed my legs before trying to stretch a little.

Tingles drifted down the backs of my thighs as I sighed again. The silence of the cave was growing ever more suffocating until I began to hum a little. The humming moved into actual words forming when I began stretching my arms a bit.

"Here's a little song I wrote," I mumbled, unsettled at first at how much the sound of my voice echoed. I let out a low HUMPH, testing how sounds bounced back against the walls and got a little more comfortable with it.

" _You might want to sing it note for note._ " My head bobbed side to side, with the silence filled I turned back to gouging out slim lines of earth.

"' _Cause when you worry your face will..._ " I pursed my lips, what was the word again? Oh well, I'd make it up I figured, letting my wand continue to dig before shrugging.

" _Your face will_ drown, _and that will bring everybody down,_ " I settled on an odd mixture of humming and adding mumbled words when I couldn't remember them.

I've always been rather good at entertaining myself; I was an only child and raised by my grandma in the countryside which meant that I spent a good bit of my time alone. Imagination was my vice and I was full of stories in my head, though leaves were my favourite audience members. I imagined that when they fell around me as I played in them, it meant that I'd told a good one.

Sometimes I brought the wireless out with me, I'd noticed that if I got really excited it'd turn on and start playing songs. They'd take up a good bit of my time with new singles and pop hits that often dropped out in the middle of the song if I focused on it too much.

After I'd met Dora, playing got a whole lot more interesting. She'd added in a new element that I hadn't realised was possible before, you could play _with actual people_ instead of the trees. People were lovely, they moved by themselves and even responded when you talked to them. But, my grandma was too old to play with me outside; too much jumping, she'd said.

"Bum-bah-bum," I attempted to recreate the song's melody as I pulled away my wand, peering at the bit of ground I'd been digging at for an hour and a half now. Not mu-

"Did you come up with that?" My humming turned into a startled croak at the sound of a voice behind me, "gah!" I put a hand over my heart, trying to slow down my breath back to the relaxed pace I'd been at before he'd sneaked up on me.

"Sorry. I thought you saw me." My head spun around to glower at the bloke I'd assumed had gotten my message and ambled over here at some point without my noticing.

"I'm going to put a bloody bell on you at this rate," I huffed, shaking my head at his sheepish grin. He laughed at that and I rolled my eyes. Though I had to admit his laughter was nice sounding, low but soft on the ears despite the echoing inside the cave.

"I'd say I needed dinner before you put a collar on me," he shrugged, taking a small step into the cave with my eyes following him over my shoulder. "But I'm pretty sure you did that already." My brow furrowed out of confusion as he leaned against the wall behind him, crossing his arms with a small smile.

"Why would I put a collar on you?" I posed my question out loud in a soft mumble, not really expecting a response.

"What'd you say?" He frowned, tilting his head slightly at me. I pursed my lips, pondering the idea of putting a collar on someone and the idea behind it.

Was it because he could shift into a dog? I mean I was thinking more along the lines of tying a small bell around his ankle, putting it around his neck would be nearly useless-plus it'd be awful for him to sleep with. I'd only ever heard of something with bondage in one of Dora's R-rated books. What was that sex thing?

"Ah. BDSM." I nodded to myself, turning my head back around focus back on what I'd been doing now that I had someone to ramble at. That'd make sense, but at the same time I was rather surprised he'd be into that considering how scarred his wrists were. Wait-

"Idiot," I tsked at myself as I realised both that he'd likely been joking and that I'd mucked up the line I'd been working on. Now it was all awkward-like.

"What now?" My companion appeared to be choking as he came around, smacking himself on the chest while staring at me with a furrowed brow.

I watched him for a moment before my eyes darted down to the pile of dirt near me and I noticed the vaguely dusty smell in my nostrils. Right, he probably didn't have a great set of lungs. My bad. I hadn't even considered that, and he'd been kind enough to come all the way over here to pay me a visit right when the boredom was about to crush me.

"Sorry." I mumbled to both him and myself, turning my gaze back down to the rectangular line's I'd formed.

I flicked my wand, stopping it from unearthing more dirt, and made a mental note that I should probably figure out a way to not breath in as much dust and dirt. Didn't want to end up like him-hackin' up in the place-now did I?

I glanced back up at him, hoping that'd stop his cough but found that he was actually saying something, "-hat.'

"Huh?" I raised a brow, wondering if I'd missed a key portion of the conversation in the few seconds it'd taken me to look away from him. When did we start talking about hats?

"I said uh." His hand came up to rub the back of his neck, and I realised that he'd pinched a large blue nightshirt from my closet at some point.

"What'd you say-before?" His hand came back down to motion in a circular fashion at me. The short sleeves only magnified the great number of tattoos and markings all over his arms, they looked weak. Tired.

I pursed my lips, attempting to recall what I'd actually been thinking about a second ago. Ah! "BDSM."

Okay, Winnie-you going to follow up that thought? Or are we just leaving it at that?

"Sorry, I have a tendency to say only half of what I was thinking out-loud," I snorted, feeling only a little bad about that fact.

It might have been fun to leave it at that. No, it would definitely have been fun. But, I was beginning to re-think the idea of him and I shagging with each health problem I noticed he'd had. If he couldn't breath in here, how well could he do with _that_ sort of exercise?

"Meaning, you're thinking of trying it out? That I'm into it?" He raised a brow, coming to a complete stop in front of me where he just sort of slowly sat down.

"Just thinking about your hobby?"He laughed a little but it wasn't as smooth as it'd been before. I decided that could be due to his attempt to smile at me or because he felt uncomfortable.

Cripes. I mean, I didn't feel terribly bad about my inability to form complete thoughts aloud. Dora proved that if you spent enough time around me, you'd figure out what the rest of the sentence was supposed to be. But...I didn't like making people uncomfortable. I'd mucked this up, and I needed to fix it.

"Uhm." I was slow in my response, unsure as to how to go about making him less uncomfortable.

A whole second ticked by before the awkwardness seemed to set in enough that even he noticed it, "sorry. That probably wasn't the best topic to bring up in here, huh?"

"What'dya mean?" I raised a brow, waiting to see what he was going on about.

"Well I mean, _here_ ," he let out short sigh as he motioned around us at the moist cave walls as though it'd tell me what he was talking about. I glanced around, noting that it was actually little bit drier in here than it'd been yesterday.

"I don't follow?" My head turned back to him with my brows furrowed out of confusion. I was _supposed_ to be making him feel less uncomfortable, but he'd confused the shite out of me.

"Where I first um." He let out another deep sigh before running a hand through his knotted hair. What'd happened in here? What did he first do in _here_? Oh!

"Ah, I see. You mean where you attempted to kidnap me for a shower?"I chuckled a little at that, hoping it'd ease whatever thoughts in his head that were causing his face to get tighter and tighter.

"Yeah. Where I tried...kidnap you."

"Right."

A few seconds ticked by of us staring at each other and I seriously started to wonder if there was anything else he wanted to say. Another second went by and I opened my mouth only to close it when he appeared to be close to talking.

He pursed his lips, looking to be genuinely worried about his possible social blunder, "merlin, this is fucked up." His expression seemed to be incredibly conflicted. I almost asked for him to explain what he meant, but I'd stopped myself just short of speaking.

He glanced at me then at the wall with a vaguely guilty look before it switched to frustrated then sad, then back to guilt to start over. I opened my mouth to speak again when he began talking, so I just...slowly shut my mouth once more.

"Haven't been around many people in the past couple of years. Gotta get back into being a regular member of society." He nodded to himself, glancing at me for a short second as he uttered his reasoning before quickly looking down and off to the side of my face.

I wasn't sure if it was because I'd seen him in his dog form-or maybe he genuinely just had canine mannerisms-but his face reminded me of a puppy that felt guilty about eating someone's slippers. The thought of such a thing brought a smile to my face for a second.

"Don't worry about it," I waved him off. "I've been around people a lot and I get by just fine as is." I gave him a grin in hopes he'd understand I wasn't upset or anything.

"Ah, that's just because you're a cute bird." He seemed to snort at my reasoning, and I raised a brow, "oh yeah? Is that why you can't get away with being awkward now?"

I almost wanted to smack myself in the face with my own hand after I'd heard the words coming out of my own idiotic mouth. Good job, Winnie. You're now sort of flirting whilst also insulting the poor man. Can you just pick a bloody tune and stick to it? Either try to bang him, make friends, or just leave him be-my goodness.

"I might look a right mess _now_ , but you should've seen me 12 years ago." He appeared to shake off my hap-hazard insult in a rather smooth fashion. "You'd be asking me for a second date, Win." I almost let my mouth drop open when he outright _winked_ at me.

"Are you sure? I'm not in the habit of asking for second dates." I gave him a small smile despite the conflicting feelings inside my chest.

I wasn't sure what exactly was happening here...was this flirting? I mean I'd flirted before, of course. But, there were usually drinks and dinner and a guy whose breath didn't have the ability to make paint peel off the walls in strips when I'd first met him...typically he also didn't try to kidnap me first. Also, did he seriously just give me a nickname _on-top_ of the nickname I have already?

"I'm sure," he nodded, the perfect image of confidence. For a short second, I thought I might actually be able to see the younger man underneath the wrinkles that his experiences had brought him. He mentioned 12 years, so perhaps he was kept away from people for 12 years? But I didn't know how old he was 12 years ago.

"So, how old are you actually?" I raised a brow, pondering my question from last night. He stared at me for a second before he chuckled, "I think I'm around 35." Ah, that's not too much younger than 45...sort of-

Wait...he _thinks_ he's 35?

"You don't actually know?" Now both of my brows were raised, and I had to fight to keep the incredulous tone out of my voice when his face dropped a bit.

I mean, I knew exactly how old I was. I even knew the exact time I was born because my grandma insisted on re-telling the story of my parent's rushing around the house and owling my grandparents at about 4 am every year. When I was younger, I didn't like the story much. It made me sad. But I'd since come to understand why she felt that story being told was important for us to keep their memory alive.

"It's 1994, right?" He tilted his head, appearing almost flustered or possibly intensely concentrated on something he was thinking about as I nodded.

"Then..." he stopped, pursing his lips while he stared at the cave's ceiling. "Yeah. About 35."

I eyed him for a moment, considering the fact that he'd needed a second to think about it. What _happened_ to him? Who could do something for 12 years that resulted in someone forgetting their own birthday?

"Where've you been for the last 12 years?" My voice was soft, hesitant in posing the question, but I didn't take my eyes off of his face.

"You haven't figured it out yet, have you?" He almost chuckled at that, but it wasn't a nice one. It was almost sarcastic yet defeated as he let his head fall back against cave's curved walls.

"Would I really ask, if I had?" I tilted my head, unsure as to what just happened to the chuckling guy I'd just been talking too. He'd aged before my very eyes into a bitter, defeated, old man.

"Azkaban." He sighed, "I've been in Azkaban."


	4. Chapter 4

Updating all my favourites today!

 **akagami hime chan:** Thank you! That BDSM part made me nervous to post for a second and then I was like, but why not? Sounds funny to me.

 **Guest 4:** Tahdaaaah? Sorry I've been so late, it's been a _sirius_ drag, right? eeeh? Get it? Yeah. Kinda have to be a dork to even write stuff like this then go "yup. I like it." I've always thought of Sirius as slightly flirty but hopefully he'll be back to his regular self sometime soon! :)

* * *

Have you ever been in a situation, where you're talking to someone and it's all going fine? But, then they say something and you're pretty sure that out _all_ the things you were expecting them to say, that wasn't it? So you just sort of...say the first thing that comes to mind?

"Ever noticed how Azkaban sounds sorta like ass-kah-ban?"

A second of silence ticked by and so I somehow continued down this path of slowly burying myself alive.

"Who would ban arses though?"

There ya go, Winnie. Just pile on one _more_ shovel of rocks onto your coffin because that'll definitely help you get out of this.

"They're so useful! You can sit on them," I held up my hand to try and count all the uses of arses I could possibly think of in this _painfully_ awkward moment.

"Slide on them, close doors with them," two more fingers went up.

I swallowed down the lump of insecurity that threatened to turn into bright red ears as my companion just stared at me. His face was entirely unreadable to me, like a great big void that I just kept staring into for some bloody reason.

"Dance with them, eat them." Another two went up, now I had a full hand and I just couldn't seem to _stop_ myself from talking right now.

"Though-the last two are more personal preferences." I wiggled my pinkie and ring finger to demonstrate exactly which two I was talking about, as though he couldn't tell from the description I'd given him about a second ago.

"I've never tried-but don't cock it 'till you've tried it, right?" I nodded to myself like that was a great bit of personal wisdom-like I wasn't just flailing for time or-

"Don't knock it." I blinked, realising that he'd just spoken, "huh?" My mouth hung open slightly, unsure if I'd heard him right or if I'd somehow begun hearing things.

"The saying you just butchered-it's don't _knock_ it, until you've tried it." I blinked at him again, noting that he'd begun sort of smiling. It wasn't the awkward teeth baring one, this one had a dimple appearing on the right side of his dry, cracked lips.

"Close enough." I shrugged, eyeing the dimple above his lip with mild interest as it was a new piece of information on his many expressions.

"Did you know you've got a dimple?" I pondered aloud, raising my hand to point right where it was on him, "it's just there."

"You have absolutely _no_ sense of danger, do you?" His tone was wry. Almost condescending sounding, but I'd noticed that his hand did, in-fact, come up to touch where I'd been pointing at on his face.

"Should I?" I raised a brow, letting my hand drop down to my lap and turning my gaze back up to his eyes.

"What do you think?" He simply reposed the question back to me with a hint of a tremor in his voice and I stared at him for a moment.

We'd fallen into a series of word games apparently, saying all the things that we didn't really want to say. I actually _hated_ word games, especially since Dora beat me in Scrabble when we were 16. She never let me forget about it, and I never missed the opportunity to completely derail the conversation if she brought it up.

He had a tendency to redirect questions he didn't want to answer. Why wouldn't he answer them? Well, if he _were_ a genuine murderer, wouldn't he at least own the fact that he was one? But, he hadn't done so very happily. He _could_ be a murderer-as in he could murder a plate of tacos, and that was about it.

He seemed nervous saying that I hadn't a bit of sense in my head-which was 100% right. I was making conversation about arses whilst being in the company of a man from Azkaban. With that in mind, I elected to accept his reluctance to answer as a sense of insecurity or fear that I'd somehow twist this back onto his character.

In the back of my mind, I knew that I wasn't making the smartest decisions ever. That I ought to _seriously_ reconsider being in a cave with a man that'd been in Azkaban for 12 years, much less sleeping around him.

Danger.

That's what that '12 years in Azkaban' told me and I knew that entirely. But...I'd also just slept near him. I'd seen how thin his skin seemed to be, how gaunt he looked, and how much he'd panicked at the possibility of going back. I'd even listened to him crying out for someone named James for half of the bloody night.

I'm sure that there were plenty of murder victims that felt rather at ease right up until they'd died, so I wasn't counting myself to be infallible. Instead, I just accepted that I didn't get a sense of danger when I looked into his eyes. I got a sense of overwhelming sadness and fear.

"I don't think so," I declared without much interest left in this conversation as I stood up fully.

I sort of wanted to know who James was, but I'd had quite enough talk of implicitly discussing emotional wounds. My legs hurt from sitting for so long and it didn't seem like I'd get much more out of him, so I elected to end the conversation...by leaving. It was efficient, okay? Maybe not kind or smooth _,_ but _efficient_.

I bent down, trying to stretch out the tightness in my hamstrings, "maybe you should, though."

I continued to stretch for a moment, considering his odd little warning that he was somehow dangerous to me. This seemed rather silly considering I'd already said my two pence, so I just picked up my wand and stood up again with a small sigh.

"Quite honestly? I think there's a great more many things to be afraid of than whatever you did in the past." I nodded at him, turning to head towards the cave's entrance.

My stomach grumbled and I frowned as I came to a stop by the cave's entrance, "like starving to death." Should have eaten the rest of that omelette this morning.

"Are you coming or shall I just bring the food back here?" I turned my head slightly to peer at him over my shoulder. He hadn't moved from his spot against the wall since I'd stood, "yoo-hoo, Mr Homeless man?"

"My name's Serious." He declared as I raised a brow, weird thing to name a kid. Though, I'd been named _Morwenna_ for crying out-lou-"like the star."

"Ah. That makes more sense." I nodded as he stood, dusting off his arse and legs.

 _Wow,_ Winnie.

I'm an idiot, aren't I? He's a bloody wizard, and I somehow didn't connect 'serious' to the literally brightest star in the night sky. It was Astronomy 101, honestly. I _siriously_ need to learn to think better, eh? Heh. That one was good.

"This opens up so many avenues." I mumbled, continuing on my way out of the cave.

"Hm?" I glanced at my companion as he came to a stop next to me, peering at me.

"I said, this _siriously_ opens up so many avenues." I pursed my lips, watching as his face immediately fell into one that said he was absolutely done with my puniness right now.

"Wow."

"Sorry." I tried my best not to crack, but I couldn't help it when he just shook his head and sighed, making me burst into a series of giggles that ranged from mad cackling to muted chortles.

* * *

"I-I'm sorry."

I glanced away from a rather excited Hippogriff I'd been watching to look at the homeless guy I'd come to know as Sirius. He looked quite distraught, though incredibly sincere in his apologies. As though my parent's deaths had anything at all to do with him. Everyone said sorry when my parents came up, but it just was what it was.

"Ish oakey," I nodded at him with a mouth full of corn tortilla and chicken in my mouth that I almost choked on as I tried to speak. I coughed at the feeling of a bit of chicken blocking my windpipe and tried to both chew faster as well as not keel over right now.

"You okay?" Sirius's hand came up from the bit of rock and dirt between us while my eyes watered and I continued to cough some more. The shredded bits of chicken and tortilla had been mashed together in my mouth, but a few slipped behind my tongue, making me panic a little.

"Hey, Win. Lean over." His hand closed the distance, trying to urge my shoulders and back away from the rock we'd been leaning against. Alright, Winnie- _try_ to bloody chew your food right and swallow before you open up your gob.

"Come on," he sounded soothing, but at the same time-the idea that _him_ of all people, trying to be soothing right now terrified me. Yet, my own hand, decided it'd be best to give him a thumbs up while I almost died sitting here.

Though as my face started to feel like it was on fire and the snot kept pouring from my nose, I figured why not? What'd I have to lose by doing what he said right now?

My lungs gave one more great big hacking noise before whatever had slipped down the wrong pipe came back up. Oh, thank you, whatever being was looking out for me. I know my gran had said that my mum believed in a Jesus fellow, so I'll just give him a bit of thanks too.

I sucked in a deep breath of air after I'd swallowed the remains of my previous mouthful down, "whew." I coughed once more and let out a deep sigh, I can't seem to do much of anything right today, can I?

"Sorry about that." I felt a light pat in-between my shoulders, so I didn't lean back all the way in case I'd wind up accidentally trapping his hand against the rock.

He didn't say anything else and his hand lingered for a few seconds, so I just focused on watching his Hippogriff. It'd trot from one side of the cliff, sniff around a bit, then walk to the other-side and sniff over there.

I sort of understood why my mum might have found them so interesting. They were creatures of manners and honour-somehow. I'd had to do this weird sort of dance thing with it when we'd first met, officially I mea-

"I am sorry about your parents," he mumbled as his hand retracted.

Ah, yes. That was how this whole thing started, wasn't it? My da was Benjy Fenwick, a serious member of their team to fight against Voldemort. Every time I met someone new and the topic of parents came round, it was always the same. 'Sorry for your loss', 'that's awful', or my favourite: 'good on 'm, dying like that for us.'

"It's not your fault." I shrugged it off to lean back against the wall. That last one had been Moody after I'd asked why they'd had to go away.

"I know, but-" he started again and I silenced him with a click of my tongue. "There's no but's about it. He died. You didn't kill him, did you?" I raised a brow as I glanced at him from the side.

"Well, no. But, I-" My tongue clicked again, but this time my hand rose to flick his side-it wasn't hard. I just wanted to send a message.

"Win," he grounded, annoyed. "I'm _just_ saying that I'm so-" I flicked him on the nose this time. Good grief, the man didn't know when to stop, did he?

"Fine." He gave a sound similar to a 'Harumph' produced by a toddler that'd been chastised but didn't feel all that sorry about it.


End file.
